Guess which part of this unbelievable American system provided the places I went on vacation?
I'm a regular poster at LBN, and if you were wondering where I went in mid-June, I took a cruise to Alaska and toured San Francisco when I came back. Among the places I visited included Glacier Bay National Park, the Mendenhall Glacier near Juneau, the Klondike Gold Rush National Historical Park in Skagway, and Alcatraz Island. Guess which part of "this unbelievable American system" as the president put it maintains all these places?
THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT, more specifically the National Park Service and the Department of the Interior.
(Oh, my vacation also included the Yukon in Canada...so tip of the hat to the Canadian federal government body that maintains natural lands/open space as well as both border patrol agencies of the US and Canada.)
And while these areas generally do not generate profit from the people who visit, guess who does?
The local businesses near these attractions, the travel agencies that arrange the cruises/vacations there, and the cruise companies that send the cruise ships up to Alaska.
Additionally, I grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area and wonder how San Francisco would have grown into a major city if not for two magnificent bridges: the Golden Gate Bridge and San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge, both made possible by the California Legislature? It's a well-known truth that infrastructure gives cities an advantage, as even Thomas Sowell, the libertarian economist who's part of a Stanford think tank, acknowledges: "...most cities throughout history have been built on navigable waterways...The relatively few exceptions have been cities with other transportation advantages, such as...Atlanta as a rail junction, or Los Angeles, which became a major city only after the invention of automobiles and the building of a network of freeways" (Economic Facts and Fallacies, p. 14).
If neither of those bridges were built, then San Francisco would have been at an economic disadvantage. Just look at Google Maps and explain how to get from Marin County or Oakland to San Francisco without taking either bridge.
So if someone had a successful restaurant business, for example, in San Francisco, that's great! But they should think about how they are able to get many customers beyond the city. Could it be...
- The tourists visiting Alcatraz or taking leisure at the Golden Gate Rec Area (both places certainly are NOT part of the private sector)?
- The students at the local California State University or community colleges or even visitors from the two nearest [link:berkeley.edu|Univ. of California] [link:ucdavis.edu|campuses]?
- The Giants or 49ers fans who took the Caltrain or BART to see the games and were looking for somewhere to eat?
And how many people vacationing to New York City would forget to visit the Statue of Liberty, Empire State Building, or any of the hundreds of other places the US govt has designated as National Historic Landmarks in NYC? And what's a vacation in Philadelphia without the Liberty Bell (now maintained by the National Park Service)? (When I visited NYC and Philly in 2010 I saw all these places.)
Lesson? Do not buy into that "government can't create jobs" bullcrap. Because...these major cities are defined by federally recognized historical landmarks or government-created infrastructure that attract people who will spend money at local businesses and thus activate the local economy. It's how American society works! People have great ideas and thru their businesses make a profit, and society provides the customers! It's so true that even Mitt Romney had to admit: "There are a lot of people in government who help us and allow us to have an economy that works and allow entrepreneurs and business leaders of various kinds to start businesses and create jobs." (As of now, the right wing pundits who were screaming their heads off from the misquoted Obama statement are now chirping like crickets over Romney's statement.)
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